Advice on starting a campaign!

[Garkaun]

Hello Everyone! I am about to begin a new campaign in Golarion and I am at a loss as to where to start it. I am looking at starting it in a small(ish) backwater village or town where nothing of big importance ever happens. I want the players to get the feel that they are the hero's of my story. Any suggestions will be considered. Thanks in advance!

[Theconiel]

I a now playing in a Kingmaker campaign. I recommend Kingmaker without hesitation.

I once tried a homebrew campaign. It ended badly. I do not recommend homebrew for new GMs.

[Garkaun]

I am by no means a new gm. I am starting a new campaign. That is all.

[GypsyMischief]

I'm about to start the Rise of The Runelords campaign, and the setting is fairly interesting. I find Varisia to have a certain eastern Europe flavor that I really dig, making the humdrum town of Sandpoint a solid starting place for a grand adventure. Honestly I'm not the biggest Golarion buff, but it seems promising.

[Meraki]

Are you looking for an adventure path, or tips on locations for a homebrew campaign?

[TimD]

It would help to know what sorts of themes and such you are planning on going with. There's really no "safe" places in Golarion, but some have different histories / themes than others.

If you are looking for more of a "blank slate" type of area, maybe somewhere in Iobaria as the area is fairly sparsely populated and (barring the areas mentioned in the Kingmaker AP) there's not been a lot published about the specific villages, cities, etc. (Looking at the map, probably either along the Pharrus River south of Norinor.)

[Derek Dalton]

The first advice is what do your players hate? If they hate guns and pirates avoid that. No one has fun playing a campaign they hate. Every campaign I have run in Pathfinder has been home brewed and worked out fairly well overall. All my players loved my Evil one the best. They eventually took over The River Kingdom.
Starting small works the world of Golerian is vast enough that a small village would be miles from anywhere near established towns and cities. Consider how dangerous it is to travel the PCs could be like thirty miles from a major established city and never have a clue it was there. The campaign for the first few levels is them exploring the area to discover the city. The next could be the city itself and so on.
Having a broad outline, including an idea of an end in mind helps. If the town is going to be a major part of the campaign have that detailed with major NPCs. The town itself could help you design adventures as well. Like how is it that no one knows about the village or town. The first few adventures could be simple, rescue the mayor's daughter from Kolbolds or whatever. You could do a few simple adventures like this until mid level then start focusing on the PCs as heroes. At seventh Leadership becomes available. I have in the past given PCs this feat for free letting them use it as they saw fit designing my adventures and campaign around how they did use it. If you are inclined politics becomes a bigger factor now as well. While Mr Mayor likes the PCs he probably doesn't like the fact they could run for mayor and win taking his job. The town itself may pester the PCs into hating it as well. Mr Wizard wants to study and research in peace and quiet. He can't if every farmer is pestering him to train their moronic son or daughter.
Several Pathfinder products offer ideas and tips for their more famous or infamous locations. They include how to include them in a campaign most going from first to higher levels.
The biggest issue is at high levels monsters and challenges become harder and harder to write. At sixteenth you are struggling to throw a scary challenge with killing the PCs. CR isn't a guiding factor anymore. Had a group of 18th level PCs take on a CR 23 Demon Lord killing him with five rounds of combat without a single loss.